Saturday Night Fever At The Alhambra Bradford Review

Reviewed by Jenny Bray

Warning: disco fever has hit the Alhambra theatre. Join in if you dare!

If you like the tracks from the Bee Gees and like a good musical that includes a whole lot of disco dancing then welcome to Saturday Night Fever, which is a storyline that utilises the Bee Gees hits throughout… This is also the stage version of the 1977 film that starred John Travolta, adapted by Robert Stigwood in collaboration with Bill Oates.

The main set is that of Club 2001, where people go to disco the night away in order to enjoy time away from their drab and ordinary lives. There are large metal staircases on either side of the stage, depicting the steps down to the club. Various other set items are dropped from the eaves to change the setting, including Tony’s home, Tony’s place of work, a dance studio and a diner. These changes worked well. I particularly liked the large mirror and disco balls in place when it was Club 2001.

The set up involves having the band up high on both stage left and right, with the 3 people playing the Bee Gees, the Gibb brothers (Drew Ferry, AJ Jenks and Oliver Thomson) on a stage in the middle. Credit to these three actors, who really had the tone of the Bee Gees down to a t, including the high pitched elements of songs.

Tony is the main character, played by Jack Wilcox, who definitely knew how to both work the stage with slick dancing and flirt with the audience as part of his smooth character that all the ladies love and swoon over. He reminded me ofHis love interest is Stephanie (Rebekah Bryant), who initially has no interest in him although agrees to be his dance partner to try to win the $1000 Club 2001 dance competition prize. The plot then follows various love interest story lines, including covering the liberated youth of the day and how the catholic expectation was still there that if a girl got pregnant you should marry her, which made Bobby C (Harry Goodson-Bevan) very unhappy, although also sing Tragedy well in a pitiful way. His character is portrayed as shy and vulnerable throughout and was well depicted by Harry. The story also has a darker undercurrent of plots going on alongside the all singing and all dancing teenagers finding their way in life, including Tony’s families situation and the clashes between different gangs on the streets. It’s worth remembering that this was a sexist era, where girls are referred to as either ‘good girls’ or ‘bitches’ by the boys, and this remains reflected in the show.

Rebekah Bryant (as Stephanie) sang a great part solo during What Kind of Fool and was a very likeable character.

The Alhambra is easy to find and we parked for just £1 (all evening after 6pm) in the car park behind the National Science and Media Museum just down the road.

The costumes were that of the late 70s and early 80s, with flares galore and various sparkle. The Bee Gees all had matching gold suits on with black shirts.

Having the Bee Gees sing the songs from a raised stage within the stage worked. They sang a wide selection of the Bee Gees hits, including Stayin’ Alive, Night Fever, More Than a Woman and How Deep is Your Love. However, as they sang the majority of the songs it seemed to take something away from the whole show for me somehow. I came out feeling slightly less enthusiastic about the show than other musicals I have seen recently and it took me a while to put my finger on this as being why. I really enjoyed the songs where cast members took the lead but some where the cast just mimed to the Bee Gees singing them just didn’t quite do it for me. I was also confused when Bobby C sang Tragedy as I wasn’t sure what he was referring to (it could have been his situation in terms of not wanting to get married or I wondered whether he actually fancied Tony – this is the point where I confess to not having watched the film prior to seeing this so I’m not sure whether the film explained it any better)

The choreographer, Bill Deamer, did an amazing job of synchronising the many disco dances to the tracks. The whole cast were very enthusiastic dancers, throughout a whole mirage of disco dancing, with most of the cast being on the stage for the majority of the time. Dance is as much the star of the show as the music. The whole cast must get a good workout every show!

I particularly enjoyed the dancing that Faizal Jaye, as DJ Monty, did. He was often on the top right of the stage, away from the rest of the cast, yet you could see his extremely enthusiastic dance moves more easily than the others as he was away from the rest of the cast.

Everyone in the audience got up to clap and dance along to the medley of songs at the very end of the show and there were raucous rounds of applause for the whole cast. Be prepared to leave with various high pitched Bee Gees songs in your head!

Rating: I rate it 4/5

Tickets cost from £18 to £46 (inclusive of booking fee)

Saturday Night Fever is on at Bradford Alhambra between 8th and 12th November 2022.

For more information or to book tickets visit www.bradford-theatres.co.uk or call the Box Office on 01274 432000

Bradford Theatres, The Alhambra Theatre, Morley Street, Bradford, BD7 1AJ

For further tour dates please visit; https://www.kenwright.com/portfolio/saturday-night-fever-2